


We'll All 'Take Flight', Won't We?

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Series: This Is How Shmerr Can Still Win [2]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast), Stellar Firma (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (in this case they're the same thing), Arguing, Attempted Murder, Body Horror, Crack Treated Seriously, Episode: e158 Panopticon (The Magnus Archives), Gen, Immolation, Magical girl transformation, Monologue, Space Pals Special (Rusty Quill Gaming), TMA season 4, Toxic Sludge, Vaping, bureaucratic language, implied/referenced paperwork fetish, themes of extinction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25080532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: Peter Lukas smiled. “Oh, you won the bet, yes. Your Archivist has entered the Lonely. You got everything you asked for.”Elias frowned. “You’ve planned something. You.”“Just a bit of insurance. It didn’t change the terms of our game at all.” Peter grinned. “Shmerr, if you come out, I’ve got an assignment for you.”
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Peter Lukas, Peter Lukas & Shmerr (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Series: This Is How Shmerr Can Still Win [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816333
Comments: 14
Kudos: 30





	We'll All 'Take Flight', Won't We?

**Author's Note:**

> You don’t _have_ to read my previous Shmerr fic to get this one (though you should because it’s very good), but you do need to know that the context is Peter Lukas found Shmerr and kept him as backup because he was Lonely and Beholding.
> 
> And then I had the thought which I laid out in [this post ](https://dwarven-beard-spores.tumblr.com/post/190591097941/i-100-stand-by-my-crack-idea-that-peter-lukas) which turned into this fic. 
> 
> The Extinction has no rights but like, sometimes you gotta write about it.
> 
> Thank you to Holo again for encouraging and talking this through with me you are wonderful and I appreciate you <3 <3 <3

“Lots of Eyes” had just disappeared into the Lonely after “Shmerr’s Professional Rival” when Peter Lukas came back.

“Elias,” as he was supposedly called, had been looking pleased with himself, and laughing in a very menacing way. His face fell when he realized he was not as alone as anticipated. Not that he’d been truly alone at all, not with Shmerr watching from nearby, shrouded in a vape cloud of his own devising and a good deal of the Lonely himself. Oh, and there was also a comatose body that was taking up the only chair in the place, which Shmerr had taken to calling “Very Inefficient.”

“What are you doing here?” Elias said. To Peter, not to Shmerr. Peter was visible. “I’ve won.”

Peter Lukas smiled. “Oh, you won the bet, yes. Your Archivist has entered the Lonely. You got everything you asked for.”

Elias frowned. “You’ve planned something.  _ You. _ ”

“Just a bit of insurance. It didn’t change the terms of our game at all.” Peter grinned. “Shmerr, if you come out, I’ve got an assignment for you.”

It had been ages since Shmerr had been visible to anyone besides Peter. He couldn’t say that he enjoyed the sensation, and Elias made it especially unpleasant. He stared as though Shmerr was a misplaced decimal in desperate need of deletion. For all of that, though, Elias was a bit underwhelming. His eyes looked heavy enough to drop out of his face, and the suit he was wearing didn’t compliment him at all.

“Peter,” Elias said slowly. “What is that?”

“Oh, he’s an alien,” Peter said.

“Actually,” Shmerr said, “I’m a Desolium.”

Elias’s face made a strange expression that could perhaps be described as ‘agog’. It did make Shmerr feel quite important indeed.

“ _ How is it talking _ ?”

Peter shrugged.

_ “ Peter _ ,” said Elias, and his voice shook.

“Oh, I know you probably want to study him,” Peter said. “But I’m afraid I got to him first. And he’s such good insurance, I’m sure you can see that.”

“I am going,” Elias said, to Peter, but without taking his eyes off Shmerr. “To kill you.” A good decision, too. He wouldn’t stand a chance against Shmerr. 

“Not if I kill you first,” Peter said, and he smiled. “Shmerr, if you would, just finish what Martin started.”

“What Martin  _ didn’t do. _ ” Elias spat. He swung at Peter with some type of blunt instrument, but Peter had gone not-quite-tangible, and it whiffed neatly through his chest. It was unclear where the weapon had come from; it seemed far too large for Elias to hide about his person. He appeared entirely unarmed. But Shmerr had, truly, far more important concerns.

Shmerr took what was called “a drag” of his vape. “Oh, no, I don’t think so.” Right unruly he was these days.

“Yes you do,” Peter insisted. “It’s very simple. Kill the man in the panopticon, take his place. Find out what the Extinction is planning, and report back to me.”

Peter remained intangible as Elias stabbed an unexpected knife through his neck.

“I  _ do _ understand what you’re asking,” Shmerr said. He glanced over at Very Inefficient, who seemed more than a little bit dead already. “I’m not going to do it.”

Elias started to laugh. It was a very dangerous laugh.

“Yes you will!” Peter said. “You have to. I saved you from space!”

“And I saved you from a  _ complete  _ organizational collapse. One does have to wonder how someone with your lack of common sense was ever appointed to a managerial position.” Shmerr spared Elias a rather disgusted glance. “Oh, yes, favoritism seems like a wonderful solution right out the gate, but the amount of checkbooks I’ve seen go unbalanced… oh, it can be trouble.”

Elias blinked at him in a way that gave Shmerr a distinct, shivery feeling, as though Elias was using keyboard shortcuts to navigate the data inside his brain.

“Now really,” Elias said. “A few months favoritism that also keeps one old nuisance out of the way, followed by delightful revenge? My plan gives me the advantage. I know you can see that.”

“Are you calling  _ me _ an old nuisance?” Peter said. “ _ You? _ ”

“Peter. Weren’t you going to go bother my Archivist?”

Shmerr looked at his hands. His skin was looking better than it had in ages, what with all the vaping. It would really be a shame to lose that. But, well, it had been a shame to lose the old moisture glands as well, and that had still been worth it.

“I assume,” he said, “that you’d like me to explain. I’m not against a bit of a monologue myself, oh no, and I can see that you two will be squabbling all night if  _ someone  _ doesn’t keep us on schedule.”

“There’d be nothing to explain,” Peter said, “if you just killed that body.”

Elias shot a glare at Peter and crossed his arms. “Shmerr the Desolium,” he said. “Please. Do explain.”

And so Shmerr began.

“Ahem. Yes. Well you see, I’ve had some time in the past few months to run the numbers, and my calculations indicate that you are both doomed to failure. Oh, no, don’t try to argue. I was quite thorough, believe me. It’s true that, as Peter Lukas has determined, I have potential in both the areas of Hands-Off Leadership and Continuous Managerial Oversight, and on the surface, that does seem a tough call to make. Peter Lukas, your innovative moisture devices and access to the Lonely have been incredibly useful. Elias, we have not really spent any meaningful time as colleagues, but I have seen your records and can only say I appreciate the  _ enthusiasm _ with which you approach the paperwork. However, there is one area of professional development to which I am uniquely suited. Luckily, I’ve been given all the pertinent information to that effect.”

“ _ Peter, _ ” said Elias, warningly. “You and your obsession with the Extinction--”

“It wasn’t  _ me _ ,” said Peter.

“Actually, it was. Your problem is that you’re entirely too short sighted. The Great Restructuring, as I’ve decided to call it, is much grander than the threat of this world ‘running out’ of people, and whatever comes afterwards feeling a different kind of sad. It is, if you’ll pardon the cliché, an opportunity. And you know what they say: there are those who take the opportunity, and those who get taken by it.

“You see, I’m a fixer. When things aren’t running smoothly, I fix them. I’ve heisted an ecosystem. Whole thing, just  _ whoop,  _ gone. That was me. I gave up a calm, moisture-filled existence to adapt to space travel. I watched a ship explode by accelerating very quickly into a comet for some reason, killing everyone aboard except me, and good riddance, I say! You know, if the Great Restructuring is looking for suggestions, get rid of trees, that’s a first step!

“Anyway, in the several months since being found adrift, I have adapted to life on this, frankly very irritating, planet. When one door closes, you know, another opens and that’s not always because of an airlock.”

“Mr. Desolium,” Elias began. 

“Shmerr.”   
  
“Shmerr, yes. Look. I can see your point. You want to end the world.  _ I’m attempting  _ to end the world right now. All you’d have to do--”

“ _ Elias!” _

“If you hadn’t figured that out by now, Peter--”

“I,” Shmerr proclaimed, “am not interested. You are attempting to  _ change _ the world, whereas I have nothing to lose if it is torn down entirely. You want a place you can rule. I  _ know  _ I am going to adapt. You know--” he gestured to his face, to the red and orange of his prison tattoo, the phoenix, his longest-running companion and perhaps the most prescient decision he’d ever made, “--some of us are born to rise from the ashes.”

“Shmerr,” said Elias, through gritted teeth. “That is literally my first body sitting next to you. I _know_ about rebirth and destruction. Join the Watcher. I will give you the attention that Peter here obviously didn’t, and you will tell me about being an alien. I can give you some forms, and we can get back. To my. _Moment_.”

“Hmm. That does shine some new light on why Very Inefficient is like this.” Shmerr sniffed, and nudged the body in the panopticon. “Ah well. It’s a shame. You came very close to following the correct stakeholder.”

After that, there was very little to say. “I’ve left my resignation papers in the upstairs office,” was the last thing, and then, for a bit of indulgent pettiness, he shoved Very Inefficient onto the floor. Shmerr had no need to sit in the Panopticon himself, but it did cause a reaction: Elias staggered and fell to the ground, right through Peter who was still not quite solid for his own safety.

That was more than enough time for Shmerr to do what needed to be done. He had already filed his metaphorical application with The Great Restructuring and now it was simply a matter of letting the power in.

And once he was ready, it was there.

First there was moisture, some indistinguishable sludge that was both like and unlike anything Shmerr had produced before, that oozed out of his orifices and through his skin. It smelled foul, it coated and dried and cracked and choked, it ate away at his flesh and puddled on the ground at his feet and dripped down into his lungs. His vape began melting into his hand. The ooze was a thick, killing thing, and at the same time, a fertile ground for the fire.

Oh, the fire. Shmerr had been expecting this, it went with the phoenix imagery, after all, would hardly seem proper procedure without it, and Shmerr was a big proponent of proper procedure. This fire was, admittedly, somewhat more painful than he’d anticipated as it immolated him completely, but sacrifices must be made. The orifices that were not entirely filled with sludge choked on the clean smoke of his own burning. From the corners of his melting eyes he saw the bright colors of things going up that were never intended to burn, but did catch fire surprisingly well.

He burned until all latent biological inefficiency had been taken care of and things went entirely dark. That’s what happenes when you don’t have eyes anymore, he supposed, though some type of vision lingered in whatever consciousness remained.

An object, a meteor, hurtling from space to the ground, striking with deadly force and destabilizing the atmosphere. 

An egg, smoking in a crater.

The explosion of a starboat into new and better opportunities. 

The crawling gnaw of mutation, of change, of creating oneself anew for a world that was not ready for it. Yet. Of making that world be ready.

Uprooting and burning and flooding and burying.

An egg, smooth and clean and barren, the perfect container.

The deletion of everything. The wiping clean. Servers and spreadsheets ready for new data. More efficient data.

An egg, hatching, watching.

The deletion.

The deletion.

The deletion.

The empty.

And then slowly, fields began to populate themselves again. Parts of Shmerr became tangibly distinct, separate from the searing pain of fire. They weren’t... They weren’t the same parts he’d had going in, and a good thing too. Otherwise that amount of agony would have been really quite unnecessary.

Shmerr couldn’t… he couldn’t say what parts they  _ were. _ Or where, actually, he was. Not the Institute, surely, but his vision pitched dizzyingly in new eyes. Everything was quiet. Possibly, his ears had been replaced by a different sensory organ, or were still in the process of recreation, or perhaps everyone had just gone, again.

He was… He felt… Well, that hardly mattered. He rather hoped he’d managed to preserve the tattoo, at least.

Shmerr took a breath. It was damp and hot and wonderfully, cleanly, wrong.

“Right then,” he said, his voice coming through strange. “This is-- this is me. Shmerr. Sort of. Formerly of the Desoliums, now of the Great Restructuring. And goodness me, things in this universe are a disorganized mess, aren’t they?”

The Great Restructuring hung like a cloud over and around Shmerr’s shoulders, but it did not answer. It likely wouldn’t; Shmerr didn’t get the sense that it was the type to provide comprehensive onboarding. Things were simply different now, different and impossible to understand. Not only new data but new software, new hardware to process it on. But Shmerr had the bearing of a born leader and a strong sense of his mission. 

And with his new abilities, whatever they were, he could see the universe spread out before him like an action plan waiting to happen. It did make him a bit giddy with the scope of it. 

He’d made groups too efficient before, of course, to the point where they didn’t need him. That’s what’d happened with his cell and, from a certain light, the convict ship as well. It was only a matter of time before his work for the Restructuring rendered him obsolete yet again, this time in perhaps a more permanent way. Some parts of him, coiling parts that Shmerr hadn’t yet become acquainted with, twisted in improbable fear. Perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to recognize the end goal.

But if that was the cost of this “brave new world,” then so be it.

“Well then,” Shmerr said, continuing his train of thought. “What a good thing it is that I’m here to fix it all.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would say that the idea of Shmerr, avatar of the Extinction, wandering the S5 landscape is out of scope and I won’t write it so have fun imagining. But that’s what I said about the premise of THIS fic and then I went and wrote it. So. You never know. No promises, though.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought. 
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores and twitter as @beardspores.


End file.
